Richard Kaloust Relaxation Techniques

11. Have Your Favorite Dessert– Guilt Free!

That’s right—a few times a month treat yourself to the sweet craving you constantly deny yourself.  Realize that consistent denial causes tension, and allowing yourself indulgences, within reason, is a great tool for relaxation.

12. Curl Up With a Really Good Book

For me, nothing is more relaxing than sitting in my home on a rainy Friday night and curling up with a really good book.  Implementing this activity in your life is a true MUST for instilling calmness.

13. Try a Sauna Or Take a Steam

Spending time in either one of these treatment centers drains your body of toxins and deodorizes the organs and skin.  You will feel SO good afterward and I recommend jumping in a Sauna or a Steam room at least once a week.

14. Book an Aromatherapy Massage

Massage HAS to be a staple of any relaxation routine, and adding scented oils and creams stimulates calmness in a wider range of senses.  Try and get a professional massage at least once every 6 weeks to literally rub out stress, and if you have someone in your life that you can trade massages with even better!

15. Buy a Foot Massage Machine

Similarly, investing in one of those contraptions that massages the feet is an excellent way to add relaxation into your life.  Our lowest appendages feel the daily grind more than any other body part, at least physically, and massaging them every day is a great idea.

16. Go For a Walk In The Rain

When it rains, we have become entrained to whip out our umbrellas and hurry indoors.  Next time, try letting go of this knee-jerk reaction and take a freeing walk amid the showers.  Don’t worry about your clothes (you can deal with it later) and just enjoy the freshness of rain on your body.

17. Go To a Comedy Club

Laughing until tears are streaming down your face is a terrific way to relax your 5 senses and restore balance in the body.  Find a really good comedy club and frequent it a few times a month and start seeing the stress-relieving benefits of laughter!

18. Sit In Silence For One Day

Pick a day in the next two weeks where you can shut off your phone, turn off your email and literally sit in silence (and solitude) for 24 straight hours.  Sound daunting?  It can be at first, but integrating this practice into your life quiets the never ending chatterbox in your head.

19. Stare At a Candle For 15 Minutes

Lighting a candle and staring at is a wonderful relaxation technique.  As you try this, commit yourself to focusing ALL of your attention on the flickering beauty.  After some practice you may experience moments of crisp awareness and heightened clarity, which are the ultimate feelings of serentiy!

20. Go Star Gazing

State at them with great purpose.  Contemplate that what you are really staring at is the past; meaning the star you are observing is really a sparkle from a distant age (given it takes millions of light years to get here)!  When you are done, bring yourself back to earth, where you are, your situation, and your life.  This will relax you.

21. Invest in Really Comfortable Furniture

Relaxation is about treating your body well ALL the time.  We sit in furniture for so much of our life that it is imperative to invest in kinds that make you feel really good.  If you drive a lot, but a comfortable seat cushion for your car.  If you work in an office, make sure your chair molds nicely to your body.  This is relaxation through the prevention of stress!

22. Drink Soothing Tea

A nice calming hot cup of tea is an elixir of relaxation.  Certain teas also have a myriad of other health benefits, including being high in antioxidants.  Great options are chamomile and green tea.

23. Invest in a Posturpedic Pillow

We spend anywhere from 25-35% of our lives sleeping, and it is critical to make this time as effective as possible.  Posturpedic pillows are expensive, but worth it.  They mold to your head and shoulders and insure proper alignment of the back as you slumber.  The results:  increased energy, better focus, and a more relaxed attitude!

24. Go See a Mindless Movie

Sitting in the dark, eating some buttery popcorn and laughing at ridiculously obvious jokes is a wonderful way to relax and get out of your own head for a few hours.  I recommend doing this at least once a month, and you know the movies I am talking about (anything with Ben Stiller in it will do the trick)!

In this modern living, you have to run backward and forward, try to get all the things with exhaustion, and multi-tasking with stress and tension is a real part of life you have to face regularly.

Your health and well-being are threatened with these types of pressures, triggers, and demands in all areas. You have to identify the stress factors for stress relief.

Stress can be caused due to various factors:

• Work problems at office
• Financial problems
• Injuries and accidents
• Death or loss of someone
• Illness, disease and poor health
• Family issues

Stress Relief Techniques:

• Identify what causes stress and recognize the triggers to avoid them.
• Make relaxation techniques part of your life for stress relief. You can relax with deep breathing, yoga,massage and meditation.
• Include physical activities into your lifestyle with creative, enjoyable, fun and variety ways for stress relief.
• Learn the stress coping skills for improving your heath and well-being.
• List out the tasks so that you can control and manage them.
• Include each action such as practical, organize, structure, time management, eliminate, simplify, and prioritize every week and see the changes in your life.
• Be genuine, honest and truthful with self and others. Deal with emotions.
• Give your body and mind rest and relaxation everyday for stress relief as you are not designed to work for all the time.
• Keep checklists, track your development, improvement and motivation and reward yourself for accomplishments.
• Eat healthy diet and be happy for stress management.
• Involve into the network and supportive framework of friends, family members, support group and professional counselors.
• Do things that you enjoy and take sometime for yourself for stress relief.
• Laugh, enjoy and share life to the fullest. No need to be perfect in everything you do. Learn stress management techniques.
• Deal with difficult people and situations, tough emotions, avoid conflicts and find out the underlying cause of stress not merely coping with stress symptoms.

When you feel that you are under stress, tension and panic, close your eyes and relax the muscles of your body taking a deep breath for stress relief. Now get back to the place where you felt dissipating and get back the control you need and then act.

Every aspect of you contributes, grows, helps, hinders, hurts, changes, and demands. You have to find and keep that balance build, strengthen, cope and enjoy living life without any stress.

Consider your life and build your own self awareness. Develop and sharpen your strengths, improving the areas of weakness you discover. Once you are in stress, energize and exercise for stress relief. Go for a walk regularly. Master and learn new things from others. Set goals.

Your brain, muscles, emotions, thoughts, feelings, heart, arteries, lungs, and blood rushing are on interactive system and it is up to you to maintain and care to make the most of it.

Stress Management Techniques That Actually Work

Updated: June 2, 2009

By Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, ND, DACBN, DABFM

Related Stress Articles:

• 11 Tips for Reducing Stress

• The Effects of Stress

• How to Cope with Stress

• Understanding Stress & Anxiety

Stressful events occur all day long, whether it’s a morning traffic jam, a cranky toddler, or a rush to get dinner on the table. We’re always working to counteract feelings of stress. And some of us have to work at it a bit harder than others. Stress can become physically and mentally exhausting, influencing our relationships, work, and daily activities. If stress has become a problem in your life, it may be wise to learn a few stress management techniques to help tame your stress and regain control.

Mastering Stress

The first step in overcoming stress, is better understanding its phases and the effects that each of them has on you both physically and emotionally. The phases of stress can be categorized as peak performance, balance, strain, burnout, and breakdown.

1.  Peak Performance: You are at your best in this phase. Your energy levels are good, you’re enthusiastic, and excited about your life.

2.  Balance: You’re coping well and getting by from day to day. You may feel exhausted at the end of the day but are able to rebound after a short recharging period.

3.  Strain: You’re managing. By the end of the day you are absolutely wiped out and you find it difficult to recharge your batteries and start again.

4.  Burnout: You’re running on empty. Your concentration is suffering, your apathetic about your life, job, and relationships. You’re tired from morning to night and you feel as though your breaking point is just around the next corner.

5.  Breakdown: You literally break down and stop functioning emotionally. This phase requires extensive healing, possibly even hospitalization.

Stress Management Techniques

Now that you understand a bit more about how stress can affect you, it’s time to learn about some stress management techniques that can be used to keep stress from building up and dampening your physical and emotional state.

Time Management

The first thing you can do to manage stress is cut back on the number of obligations in your life. You simply can’t squeeze every meeting, project, school activity, and social event into the time you’re given each day. (And wishing for more time isn’t going to help either.) Take control of your daily life by prioritizing your obligations so that you’re sure to get to the things that are most important to you finished. Managing your time is a skill that can be mastered, just like riding a bike or driving a car. Here are a few pointers:

• Keep a daily “to do” list and highlight the obligations that are a top priority. (This should be no more than two out of every ten items.)
• Reserve your most important tasks for the hours of the day when you are most productive. (Some people are best in the morning, others right after lunch.)
• Plan to tackle mundane or routine tasks in the hours when you are typically in a lull. (Schedule a haircut for right after lunch.)
• Leave enough wiggle room in your daily calendar to accommodate crises, and last minute emergencies.

Relaxation Techniques

Despite our best efforts at planning and scheduling, there will still be times when a stressful event or circumstance gets the best of you. For these times, there are several stress management techniques that you can use to keep stress under control.

• Deep Breathing: Breathing seems simple enough, but in reality, most of us are doing it very wrong. Poor posture often leads to the habit of taking rapid, shallow breaths that fill only the upper cavity of the chest. Proper breathing should be slow, deep, and controlled, and each breath should fill the tummy (or the diaphragm) followed by the lower chest and then the upper chest. Just five to ten minutes of deep breathing exercises can help to calm the mind and spirit and relax the body.
• Guided Imagery: This technique is really just another method of day dreaming, except that in these daydreams you only focus on positive images or events. The idea is that concentrating on a positive experience will lift the mood and reduce feelings of stress. To practice this technique, begin by closing your eyes and imagining a favorite object: a cat, a painting, a flower, or whatever. Then, very slowly, begin to take account of the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings associated with this object. Savor each new sense as you experience it. Continue with this imagery for as long as it takes for you to fully enjoy the moment. Then take a deep breath, open your eyes, and carry on with you day. (This method is obviously not recommended for every situation, (like when sitting in traffic, for example), but it may be just the ticket for dealing with a stressful midterm paper.
• Acupuncture: Based on putting the body in to its proper state of harmony, acupuncture has had a successful history of improving health. So successful is the track record of acupuncture until western medicine is taking a fresh look at the merits of this treatment. If you’ve not visited an acupuncturist, now may be a good time to have your Chi energy put to work for you.
• Progressive Relaxation: This technique helps to handle emotional stress by counteracting physical stresses on the body. By slowly working through the body’s major muscle groups and tensing and relaxing each one individually, you can learn to feel the difference between tension and deep relaxation. This method helps keep the body in tune with the mind and is great for relieving chronic stress.